But the love of characters, as has
been said, endures because it is self-dependent. Differences arise
when what they get is something different and not what they desire;
for it is like getting nothing at all when we do not get what we aim
at; compare the story of the person who made promises to a
lyre-player, promising him the more, the better he sang, but in the
morning, when the other demanded the fulfilment of his promises,
said that he had given pleasure for pleasure. Now if this had been
what each wanted, all would have been well; but if the one wanted
enjoyment but the other gain, and the one has what he wants while
the other has not, the terms of the association will not have been
properly fulfilled; for what each in fact wants is what he attends to,
and it is for the sake of that that that he will give what he has.
But who is to fix the worth of the service; he who makes the
sacrifice or he who has got the advantage? At any rate the other seems
to leave it to him. This is what they say Protagoras used to do;
whenever he taught anything whatsoever, he bade the learner assess the
value of the knowledge, and accepted the amount so fixed. But in
such matters some men approve of the saying 'let a man have his
fixed reward'. Those who get the money first and then do none of the
things they said they would, owing to the extravagance of their
promises, naturally find themselves the objects of complaint; for they
do not fulfil what they agreed to.
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